Buying a first home – fiscal benefits

When you come to a purchase of a first home, there are many things you need to be aware of. Tax implication, in fact, can be important if you do not declare that you are a first-time home buyer.

Fiscal benefits, in case you are purchasing a property, are applied on the following entries:

Registration tax (Imposta di registro). The registration tax is paid every time you need to register your deed. The deed will be registered in a public registry and anyone can modify date and content.

The Revenue Office holds the registries and this tax has to be paid whenever a good is transferred upon payment of a price.

Legal transcription fee (Imposta ipotecaria). The transcription fee is due whenever you transfer a property or when you register a right or a charge on a property. Every deed in which you sale, donate, you establish a right on a property, etc. requires the payment of this tax. The deed is always registered at the land registry office.

Cadastral tax (Imposta catastale). The payment of this tax is required when you sale, donate or in any case you transfer a property and/or establish a right or a charge on it. Consequently you have to update the cadastral registry, reason why you have to pay this tax.

If you are buying a first home from a private, you have the following fiscal benefit:

Registration tax: 2% instead of 9%. In any case, the amount of the registration tax cannot be lower than €1,000.

Transcription fees and cadastral taxes will be €50 each when you buy a first home.

When can or cannot you obtain fiscal benefits?

• You can benefit if you do not own any other properties in the Commune where you live. Otherwise you can declare in the deed that you are moving your residency within the following 18 months.
• Sometimes, if you are a second-home owner, you might be entitled to have fiscal benefits as a first-home buyer. This happens in case you are selling the property within one year after the completion.
• If you are a luxury first home buyer or you are buying a house for no residential use, you cannot obtain any benefits.
• You are not entitled to any fiscal benefits if you are married in joined assets and you own, together with your partner, another property per which you wish to obtain those benefits.
• If only one spouse has obtained benefits from a purchase, the other spouse can obtain benefits but limited to his/her quote.